Why talk about technical textiles in a recession?
The answer is in a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal. An article “H&M bets quietly on a textiles line” quipped about the less fanfare diversification of the Swedish fashion giant Hennes & Mauritz to fashion textiles. H&M not sure on how the retail market will buy into the expansion unveiled its diversification with a great caution. What does this reveal? Even big names in the industry are not sure of commodity and consumer oriented markets in these difficult times. This H&M incident in a way highlights certain aspects to the export oriented Indian textile industry. The import volumes of commodity textiles in the US and Europe will not be as they were in early 2000s. The US and European textile chains are themselves looking into diversification to stay afloat. These circumstances reiterate our early recommendation that the Indian textiles industry should do two things immediately: 1) look for ways to expand laterally and 2) invest in those segments of the industry that
